Yet the Spaniards were a proud people, not to be beaten without a hard struggle; while the French were bound to do their best in any ease. So the fight was furious and fought at the closest quarters. The gunners could often see every feature of their opponents' faces and were sometimes scorched by the flashes from opposing guns. The Victory was fighting a terrific duel with the French Redoutable, and Nelson was pacing the deck with his flag-captain, Hardy, when, at 1.25, he suddenly sank on his knees and fell over on his side, having been hit by a musket-shot fired from the enemy's mizzentop, only fifteen yards away. "They've done for me at last," said Nelson, as Hardy stooped over him. A Sergeant of Marines and two bluejackets ran forward and carried him below. Though in great agony he pulled out his handkerchief and, with his one hand, carefully covered his face, in the hope that the men between decks would not see who was hit.
While Nelson lay dying below, the fight raged worse than ever round the Victory. The Redoutable's tops were full of snipers, who not only plied their muskets to good effect but also used hand grenades (something like the bombs of the present day). The Victory's deck was almost cleared by the intense fire of these men, and the crew of the Redoutable got ready to board. But on the word "Repel boarders!" so many marines and blue-jackets rushed up from below that the French gave up the attempt. The musketry fire was still very hot from one ship to another; and the French snipers were as bad as ever. But those in the mizzentop from which Nelson was hit were all sniped by his signal midshipman, young Jack Pollard, who, being a dead shot, picked off the Frenchmen one by one as they leaned over to take aim. In this way Pollard must have hit the man who hit Nelson.
[Illustration: MODEL OF THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR.
(Reproduced by permission from the model
at the Royal United Service Institution.)]
An hour after Nelson had fallen the Victory had become so battered, so hampered by a maze of fallen masts and rigging, and so dangerously holed between wind and water, that Hardy was glad of her sheering off a bit, out of the thick of the fight. He then ran below to see Nelson, who at once asked, "Well, Hardy, how goes the battle?" "Very well, my Lord," said Hardy, "we have twelve of the enemy's ships." "I hope," said Nelson, "that none of ours have struck." "There's no fear of that," said Hardy. Another hour passed before Hardy could come back to say, "I am certain that fourteen or fifteen have struck." "That's well," said Nelson, "but I bargained for twenty." Then, rousing himself to give his last order, he said, "Anchor, Hardy, anchor!" for he knew a storm was coming and that Cape Trafalgar was a bad lee shore (that is, a shore toward which the wind is blowing). A few minutes later he died, murmuring with his latest breath, "Thank God, I've done my duty."
Trafalgar was so complete a victory that Napoleon gave up all attempts to conquer the British at sea. But he renewed his "Continental System" and made it ten times worse than before. Having smashed the Austrian and Russian armies at Austerlitz, and the Prussian one at Jena, he wrote the Berlin Decrees, ordering every port on the continent of Europe to be shut against every single British ship. This was blockade from the land. The British answered with a blockade from the sea, giving notice, by their Orders-in-Council, that their Navy would stop the trade of every port which shut out British vessels. Napoleon hoped that if he could bully Europe into obeying his Berlin Decrees he would "conquer the sea by the land." But what really happened was quite the other way round; for Napoleon's land was conquered by the British sea. So much of the trade of the European ports had been carried on by British vessels that to shut these out meant killing the trade in some ports and hurting it in all. Imagine the feelings of a merchant whose country's army had been beaten by Napoleon, and whose own trade was stopped by the Berlin Decrees, when he saw the sea open to all who were under the care of the British Navy and closed to all who were not! Imagine also what he thought of the difference between Napoleon's land-power, which made him a prisoner at home, and British sea-power, which only obliged him to obey certain laws of trade abroad! Then imagine which side he thought the better one for trade, when he saw Napoleon himself being forced to choose between letting British vessels into France with cloth or letting his army go bare!
Slowly, at first, but very surely, and faster as time went on, the shutting of the ports against British vessels roused the peoples of Europe against Napoleon. They were, of course, roused by his other acts of tyranny—by the way he cut up countries into new kingdoms to suit himself first and the people of these countries last or not at all, by his ordering foreigners about like slaves, and by his being a ruthless conqueror wherever he could. But his shutting of the ports added a kind of slow starvation in the needs and arts of life to all his other sins; while the opening of the ports to British fleets and armies, and to the British trade that followed, meant the bread of life and liberty. Thus Trafalgar forced Napoleon either to give in at once or else to go on raising those hosts of enemies which sapped his strength in Spain and Russia and caused his fall at Waterloo.